Ungulate impact on different beech regeneration sites

Abstract

Forest game damages lead to a serious conflict between forest and game managers, both in Hungary and
worldwide. For forestry units the most important source of incomes is the logging. However, ungulates can
have serious local browsing pressure on reforestation sites by their normal feeding activities.
Foresters believe that the only way for reducing that damage is the radical reduction of number of large
herbivorous game species (mainly red deer) in the forest. But for game managers a suitable level of ungulate
density is necessary to gain incomes from hunting. As a consequence there is no agreement about the
ecologically and economically sustainable ungulate density and impact. To decrease this difficult
contradiction we need scientific data about the real browsing effect of large herbivores on forest vegetation of
different characteristics.
In this study we investigated the available food supply and the browsing effect of ungulates on artificial and
natural beech regeneration sites of different ages. Density of beech saplings and number of available and
browsed sprouts of all woody species present were estimated.
We found significantly more beech saplings and sprouts and also higher browsing impact on beech in the
natural than in artifical sites. Although we did not reveal a clear linear correlation, the highest browsing
values (more than 20%) were detected when the proportion of the alternative food supply was less than 10 %.
We propose to maintain natural species diversity in beech regeneration sites from the very first period for
giving chance to ungulate species not to browse target tree species. Based on our results diverse woody
vegetation can have a great importance not only in artificial monospecies beech regeneration sites, but even
in case of natural beech regeneration.